It’s still March, for God’s sake…

or at least it was a few days ago.

We've had a normal weather respite for the last week

Thank God

(and I say this sincerely on Palm Sunday)

and the garden has slowed down a bit

But...

Even  some hellebores are beginning to fade…that usually doesn’t happen until May!

And  of  course

WEEDS GALORE WEEDS   WEEDS

I am not going to show you a picture of weeds because 

this is one thing  you all have, and for which 

you need  a  Dig Deep Weeder.

The warmth also signaled a very early end to the
Dwarf Reticulate and histrioides Iris and a quick end to the snowdrops…suddenly shriveled and sad …also a reminder….
now is the time to divide them -
when you can remember where they were and where you want more.

Oh yes, and speaking of snowdrops, ‘S. Arnott’ is really the biggest
and showiest.  It’s a shame that you cannot appreciate the size
in these rather shaky pictures,

but trust me, flailing open like this –  at least 2 inches across –
and when drooping it is the size of the famous 

pearl earring of Vermeer.

So right now is the time, if there ever was one, to get your snowdrop
orders into the most gallant and graceful bulb supplier of all time,
The Temple Nursery of Mr. H. Lyman.  
Mr. Lyman  is a real specialist and corresponds with you in calligraphy.  Yes, I swear this to be true.  And there is no 

web site, (which is a relief really)
but you may request a catalogue at 

Box 591, Trumansburg, New York  14886.  

Please tell him I sent you.

You can read the entire edition of DIRTIER, Volume 34 HERE!

PUBLIC  SERVICE  ANNOUNCEMENT

Aimed at my  fellow frigid-blooded friends who, like me,  are always cold…

A cozy house just is not enough.

If there is happiness in a material thing, especially one as simple as a pair of well-fitting, warm fleecy tights, then I have found Nirvana. Mind you, these are not  Yoga pants  or running pants -- so they don’t have  annoying floppy wide legs or even worse, an elastic band at the ankle…nor do they have any messages printed on them anywhere.  They are just simple warm and comforting.

If my website, The Best @ Dianne B can bring the same happiness to you that these toasty tights from Blue Ice Clothing  have brought to me, I am happy.
WARM  WINTER  READING

Long before Patti Smith’s great little book , Just Kids about her juicy sixties life in New York with Robert Mapplethorpe received a National Book Award, I recommended it here in Volume 10 of DIRTIER when first published, and now in the throes of winter I would like to point you toward another small tome from Patti called  - delightfully and snuggly –Woolgathering.

In this hardcover book, a reprise of a small volume she made in the 90’s for the charmingly diminutive Hannuman Press. 

(If you don’t know these tiny 2 x 4 inch books printed in India by Raymond Foye and Francesco Clemente, well, then you should).

…anyway in this new edition of Woolgathering, available in your bookstores now, she covers and photographs all sorts of topics from our forefathers to what’s on Johnny Depp’s desk. Snug and charming.

Best of this…best of that…Best movie of the year, best book, best plant, best buy, best best best.  Well, who knows these days what is best anyway with such an abundance of choices, but I particularly like the idea of Best Word of the Year as chosen by the American Dialect Society (in cahoots with the Linguistic Society) and they have chosen:

OCCUPY

Nothing like bringing new life to a seemingly 

tired old word.

Since Brain Pickings dreamed up a logo similar to mine (I won’t pile on the hosannas  by alluding that they might have been influenced, but I think mine came first), I have taken interest in this website and you might too.  It is sometimes nerdy and too new-agey – and never about gardening -- but mostly has great images and things of cultural interest .

Dianne B Has Great News for You!

WHAT MAKES  A THING IRRESISTIBLE?

Exclusivity.   Distinction.   Quality.  And of course, Style.

The TWO NEW GARDEN GREATS @ DIANNE B
Have It All &  MORE--MARVELOUS!

I have spent years  looking for these perfect tools with the
equipoise and integrity to live up to the distinction of
being  Dianne B. Garden Greats.
Here  they  are...

I was searching for the Perfect Weeder — but
found instead a miracle !
This tool doesn’t just rout out the longest, most 

rebellious weeds — it also slices into the earth and 

makes a perfect curvature to deposit a big fat lily bulb 

or allium or tulip — you name it.   So you can imagine, 

during this furious bulb planting time that I am doubly 

thrilled to offer it to you.

The graceful Poetic Potting Trowel is designed with an inherent rhythm that makes using it unlike any other gardening tool that I have ever touched.  The wood 

handles are engraved to remind you that you are 

gardening with style.

SPEAKING of BULB PLANTING

 
I have still many more to plant, and if you are in 

the same boat, think on this:Try interplanting  

the more delectable bulbs (that is, those favored by 

rodents and such like tulips, hyacinths,lilies, etc) with 

pest-deterring bulbs like Narcissus, Allium and Fritillaria.

 This not only protects your bulbs from the burrowers, it 

can make for beautiful mixed bulb pictures.  

And plant deep…that helps too.

I planted Fritillaria and Puschkinia here between the 

Balinese cows now cloaked with my adored Arum italicum.

 Narcissus and Muscari Hyacinths are now nestled 

among the male and female Skimmia plants:  

(which one has the berries, the girl or
the boy...I can never remember).

See how the berries turn red and the Black mambo 

stems become more brilliant !

For more on fall plantings, great garden tools and
other exciting news, visit us at

The Best @ Dianne B!

DIRTIER Volume 28 Mid Autumn 2011

OH  TO  BE  SUCH  A  TREE

This evanescent work of art is not any ersatz tree, but a cast resin life-size approximation of a tree from one of my favorite artists, Ugo Rondinone.  In his words, this piece becomes a “memoriam of condensed time.”  The title of the piece, Everything Gets Lighter Everyone is Light, is taken from a poem by John Giorno.

 Everyone

gets

lighter

everyone

gets  lighter

everyone  gets

lighter

everyone  gets  lighter

everyone  is  light

This  is my small homage to Steve Jobs.  Did you know he studied calligraphy and 

that is why the digital world is filled with fonts?

  Just a few months ago  I told you what a wonderful difference it makes for me  propping  my Ipad  around the garden, listening to music while  doing (or dancing through) chores or identifying a leaf …..just one of the myriad diversities he has provided for us. Thanks Steve.  I especially like this snippet from Ross Douthat in last Sunday’s NY Times, “ ....the Apple founder’s eye for grace and style, and his recognition of the deep connection between beauty and civilization.”

ANOTHER  GORGEOUS  TREE

This  is  the  Japanese maple that you, my dear readers, helped me identify last autumn when I was at an absolute loss, and so was the owner, of the the divine tree at the height of its burnished fall brilliance.  Well, I made such a fuss over said tree, that my estimable gardening friend Karrie Wright, who was obviously  following DIRTIER and knew I was longing for an Acer  japonicum, especially an aconitifolium, gifted this dazzling one to me for my birthday.  Marders, its source,  planted it here in the garden last month and will tell me nothing more than ‘Rising Sun’.  Now, Vertrees, the absolute authority on Japanese maples, doesn’t list ‘Rising Sun’ at all , nor does it show a picture that looks anything like this gigantic many-fingered leaf….the autumn colors are just beginning to show…I am not sure if we will have the full spectrum this year because of our crazy weather and because it is new to my garden, but watch this space for all beautiful developments.  

And need I say….oh thank you Karrie & Trevor.

WHAT   IS   EXCITING  TO  ME….

May not be so exciting to you but this protruding hair from a Tacca chantrieri has me in a utopian deliria of happiness…. 

 I have talked about this plant before, so there are those of you who may recognize its significance, both romantic and horticultural; but I have always either bought it in flower (when lucky enough to find it) or grew it in a pot, where I have had luck maybe 1 time in 10…but this is a tuber from van Bourgondien that I put in the ground at the beginning 
of summer and sort of forgot about, though I did give it a highly prized not-too shady, 

not-too-sunny protected spot.

Well, right now we are in the midst of some heady Indian Summer days (October 8,9,10) and whether or not it will unfurl before some excruciating frost comes is anybody’s guess, but the sight of that one jutting projectile is enough to keep me euphoric for days…….

DIANNE  B  YARD  BAG  EXPOSED

You probably think…what…is she crazy to show us this beat-up old bag?

Absolutely not….this is truth in e-commerce, and yes I am extremely hard on my products.  This bag is one of the prototypes and has been in solid use…day and night, snow, sleet and blazing sun for three or four years.  I suppose I will have to retire it soon, but nothing makes me happier than to have my Yard Bags near me when I am knee deep in planting bulbs, dividing groundcovers (a boring but rewarding job) and  endlessly thinning 

and weeding.

But do look closely at the handles, they are as sturdy as can be…not like these crappy ones on the more-expensive English Bosbags…they break every time.

AND  OH — TO  BE  KISSED  by a real PLANT MAN

Twas the occasion of the Biennial LongHouse Horticultural Award, this year

presented to the venerable firm of Oehme Van Sweden who introduced the New American Landscape (as it has been so aptly named) with their use of swathes of grasses and masses of billowing perennials.

That charming man with me is Wolfgang van Oehme, to whom we all owe a big debt for opening our garden eyes to new vistas.

I OWE HIM AN ESPECIALLY BIG DEBT FOR PROVIDING ME WITH 

MY DATISCA CANNABINA.

LongHouse was graced with a charming autumnal day and it was
great to share it with our botanic frinds from far and wide.

Mulch Mania

It is not just an obsession or a fad and though it does make everything it touches look a million times better, mulch is SOOOO useful.  It is not often you find both of these traits in one fixation.  I bet this tree has had the advantage of some very good mulch.

No matter how good is your mixture of

air+water+minerals+organic matter  =  SOIL

or dirt as I like to call it.   It only gets better with mulch and the better 

the mulch, the better it gets.

All soil is not the same, of course.  There is Clay Soil with not much air in it and 

fine particles, there is SILT (or  LOAM) which is in-between, and then, there is 

SAND with large particles and lots of air.

Sandy soil is dryer and needs to be irrigated.

Clay soil is wetter and heavier – most plants like it

Silt, as I said, is in-between and probably the best.

How do you know what kind you have?  Well, it is quite easy unless you want to 

get overly technical and scientific…but more or less — just take a nice big handful 

of your very own soil and squeeze it – if it holds together in a solid mass then it is 

clay, if it drifts through your fingers it is sandy and if it crumbles…then it is in-between.

Anyway – good old brown Hamptons mulch is great as 

an addition to ANY soil:

It conserves moisture

It keeps the soil cooler

+

Invaluably, it reduces your antagonizing and never-ending war with weeds..

The very best mulch, to be sure, is from Ray Smith.  Alexandra Monroe 

credits the 

fecundity of her gorgeous garden to it and coined

 the charming cognomen  ‘Holy Shit’ to describe the miracle.

Here are some garden treasures that have greatly benefitted from Ray’s handhewn mulch…and  for you readers who are not in or close enough to the Hamptons to get Ray Smith’s mulch…I bet you have a really good Tree Man like our Ray Smith that also has the best mulch in town.  This is where quality counts.

The epitome of variegation…the green and white Abies koreana against the 
startling green and gold of the Tiger's Eye pine.

The dust from the Cimicifuga racemes settles lovingly on the upturned 

leaf of the Colocasia ‘Mojito’.

IT’S   TIME

Speaking of Colocasia and the other ‘tropical’ bulbs and tubers worth saving…

As well as any other favorites that can’t stand our Northeastern winters, like my beloved Farfugium varieatum (absolutely my favorite "house plant", though I find that a very 

non-glamorous term)

And the elegant Fatsia  (this is one where I bring the best example indoors for the winter, but have had luck leaving others to survive outside).

It IsTime for the gruesome job of digging and storing, or 

bringing those heavy pots in for the winter.  As this is one of 

my least favorite jobs, last year I let it go until the end of 

October and that, my friends, was a big fat mistake.  

So, it is time.

SUGGESTIONS  ANYONE?

This thriving Nepenthes is too good to lose.  I don’t have perfect 

greenhouse conditions, but if I keep it on a pedestal in the 

heated part of the house with just enough light — will it survive?

GIFT  PROBLEMS  FOREVER  SOLVED

We have come up with a delightful Gift Certificate so that you don’t have to make the gruelingly hard choice of What to Give Your Gardening SweetHeart/Friend/Old Aunt or anyone who loves gardening that you really want to please.

Once you go to the web site and click on an amount

(available from $25 to $250.00), follow the simple instructions to 

have your inscriptrion charmingly written by hand

and your adored one can redeem it on-line for any of our wonderful

products at The Best @ Dianne B.

If you want to be high-tech about it, we will electronically send on the gift certificate.  If you wish to be more charmingly old-fashioned, we will send it by snail mail — very nicely wrapped and presented.

FAVORITE  FALL  FLOWER

Surely, Tricyrtis — more commonly called Toad Lilies though I don’t like that name 

but think this delicate plant got labelled so uncharmingly because the gorgeous 

little-orchid like flowers are spotted?  

But surely, it is the dreamiest of the last-to-flower perennials.

If you are not totally entranced by this plant perhaps it is because
you haven’t got the best species, which is Tricyrtis hirta — the
weeping one.  All Tricyrta have abundant orchid-like flowers,
but most have ramrod-stiff stalks and never looks at home in the garden....so 

eschew the species chinensis and latifolia, macropoda too isn't very nice...but get 

that Tricyrtis hirta for sure…

There is one with a variegated leaf that is especially nice.  Look closely at this 

picture and see the bee. 

NIGHT  TO  REMEMBER  

Robert Wilson’s 70th Birthday was a Super Gala held in the
Magic Room --- a glass penthouse, no less ---
on top of the Dior Building on 57th Street and sponsored by LVMH
Delicious champagne, of course.

Bob Wilson and Kathy Rayner cutting the magnificent cake
which was an exact replica of The Watermill Center.

Bob thinking deep thoughts surrounded by me, Elka, Lys,
Shaikha Paula and Abdullah.

Me and my gal with Charles Fabius.

The party followed the thrilling performance of The Threepenny Opera
which Bob created for the Berliner Ensemble and
had its American Premiere that same night at BAM.

We even stayed out till 3AM...
how delightful.

This is a blond Mac the Knife...fantastic.

AUTUMN  IS  HEAVEN

You can look at a garden in a book, you can look and you can look and you can look, even in a lushly pictorial book like Dan Pearson's or a splendid vintage magazine like BLOOM ,  you still can’t really feel it — and rarely
can you even see it…

This is the time to really get down and look at what makes up a garden and of course, to get ready for spring…oh smell that earth as you plant those bulbs…

In the next issue of DIRTIER we will introduce our 

TWO NEW FABULOUS COUTURE GARDEN TOOLS  just in time for Christmas…

But until then…you have never needed good gardening accoutrements more…

The Quintessential Plant Marker to identify the plants you are cutting 

back and the new ones you are planting.

The Luxury Hand Made Pure Steel Shovel nothing digs 

in that dirt better.

The Dianne B Tool Belt is indispensable at this time of year.

The English Garden Twine is just what you need for aligning your specimen trees, tying up your fastgiates to achieve that columnar shape you so desire and the perfect thing for securing the burlap around the tender plants.  It is terrific.